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Mansions spring up in the suburbs

New research has found that buyers in smarter suburbs want more space than the typical four bedroom detached house provides, and are now more likely to buy a house, knock it down and rebuild something grander on the plot.

This is leading to an extensive redevelopment of the more expensive suburbs of London, according to Savills, who published the report. It found that Londons richest suburb, Oxshott and Stoke DAbernon had 49 planning applications submitted within twelve months for these new suburban mansions which are larger and more opulent than the average suburban home.

Richard Winter, head of Savills Esher Office said: These suburbs are increasingly becoming the domain of the high-ranking executives who are often cashing in on a central London sale.

Lucian Cook from Savills research added: On average successful applications allowed for a house 2.5 times the size of the donor property. Typically this would involve demolishing an already fairly large four-bedroom detached house of around 3,300 sq ft and replacing it with a 8,500 sq ft six or seven bedroom mansion.

The trend for this supersizing also shows no sign of letting up in the future: planning applications for not just rebuilds but extensions in Oxshott and Stoke dAbernon make up nearly half of all applications submitted. This is leading to a new emerging market for the £7-£8m super mansion, which could fulfil some as yet untapped demand, local agents predict.